


Distractions

by nonbinarycoded



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M, and thats how its revealed that ooh they fuckin, it's shamelessly that, it's that, you know that trope where one person accidentally wears the others clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 09:56:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14258472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonbinarycoded/pseuds/nonbinarycoded
Summary: There are plenty of reasons two people sharing a room could accidentally end up wearing each other's clothes without noticing. Shame on the rest of Fjord's group for jumping to conclusions.





	Distractions

Fjord and Molly were both still getting used to being able to sleep at inns on their travels. Molly had simply never had the luxury— he had a perfectly good tent he didn’t have to waste coin on, and not many places were keen on letting a crew that looked like Molly’s usual company take up residence for a night or two. Fjord had just been traveling between cities for too long to get comfortable. He was used to spending longer between cities than in them, so sleeping on the side of the road was what he knew. The luxury of having both a stable place to sleep and the money to afford it was something new and different.

Still, though, old habits weren’t easy to kick, and the group wasn’t about to buy out seven separate rooms to house them all, so they shared. Beau could complain about Jester being a talkative roommate all she wanted, but Fjord was familiar enough with her at this point to know it was all a front. They enjoyed each other’s company, and until either Yasha or Beau worked up the nerve to make a move, the pair could keep Jester with them. Caleb and Nott tended to stick together anyways, and apparently rooms weren’t exempt from that; those two bunking together was never a question.

That left Fjord and Molly.

Fjord had to admit, he’d been suspicious of Molly at first, and that suspicion certainly hadn’t eased up entirely. He was a terrible liar, especially about things that mattered. But it was hard to deny that the two worked well together. Battle flowed nicely when they had each other’s backs, plans worked well when it was the two of them. He didn’t trust Molly, and Molly was too smart to trust him yet, but they were comfortable with each other. They’d been getting… increasingly more comfortable with each other the last few nights, and having a room to themselves was hurrying that right along, but what the rest of the party didn’t need to know, they didn’t need to know.

Besides, Fjord was sure Molly considered it a fling, so they didn’t need to make a big deal out of it. And Molly was sure Fjord considered it a fling, so he wasn’t about to go letting things slip where they didn’t need to be said.

* * *

When you’re on the road long enough, you pick up a myriad of skills. Some of them are broad, useful things that take some practice, but some of them just come with the territory. Little, specific things that don’t get thought about, but that come in handy. The ability to accurately judge how long it would take to cover a specific amount of ground, or how long before the sun set were small things, but things that one paid more attention to on the road. The ability to get dressed in the dark, before or just as the sun was rising was a similar skill. Fjord had been blessed with darkvision, so dressing in the dark was never too terrible a problem, but he’d learned to pay closer attention to his clothes to keep having to squint through greyscale from creating too many problems.

After a certain point, skills like that became second nature. Fjord took for granted that he knew getting from one end of a town this size to the other would take just under an hour. He took for granted the ability to give someone a once-over and more or less accurately decide whether or not they were someone he could trust.

He took for granted that if it was dark, and he had to get dressed, he’d be able to do it without coming out the other end looking stupid.

Besides, he only had the one coat, and he wore the same thing most every day. Sure, he was used to pulling any clothes he’d taken off out of his pack rather than picking them out after being scattered on the floor, but it was simple. He didn’t pay attention to what he’d grabbed because it was _simple_. And sometimes there were just more interesting things to pay attention to.

Molly rolled over in the bed, curling into the warm space Fjord had left behind like a cat. Moments like this were the only time Fjord had to really study the extent of Molly’s tattoos; they spread across his arms and shoulders, down his sides, over his thighs. A whole mess of interwoven symbols and scenes had made such a natural home on Molly’s body that Fjord had to wonder what Molly looked like without those tattoos. He couldn’t get the image to stick in his mind; trying to picture Molly without tattoos was such a foreign, wrong idea that it wouldn’t hold. One of the only places left on Molly’s body still entirely un-inked was his tail, which had begun to twitch in his sleep. His tail lolled off the bed and flicked gently when it brushed the ground, nearly catching the stray edge of— _there_ was Fjord’s coat.

He grabbed it from the floor, careful to avoid Molly’s tail, or the arm that had dropped to join it. Fjord tugged the coat on, eyes trained on Molly’s face to catch any hint of the other waking up. He may not have been the stealthiest of their bunch but he was reasonably confident that he could get out of a room without waking someone. With his coat on, he snatched his pack from the corner and headed out.

It was early, hardly sunup, but his group— he would not call them the Mighty Nein, it was a fun joke to tell strangers but he refused to refer to them that way in his own head— was already making their way downstairs. They’d gotten in early the night before, and exhausted as they were, you could only really sleep for so long before it started to become a hassle to keep rolling over and ignoring daybreak. Jester, ever the early riser, was sprawled across three separate chairs at a table in the corner of the tavern, talking with Caleb and Nott. Yasha sat next to them, listening silently, and Fjord couldn’t tell if it was paint or sleep that made her eyes look so dark. No sign of Beau, although if Jester and Yasha were down he was sure she’d be around any minute.

Speaking of Yasha, ever the silent watchman, she was the first to notice Fjord reach the bottom of the stairs. And if Fjord didn’t know any better, he’d think it was an actual smile on her face. He knew she was beginning to warm up to the idea of running with a different crew, but he didn’t think he was on such good terms with her that she’d actually be happy to see him. He nodded at her, and she tapped Jester’s arm gently, then gestured over towards Fjord.

Now, Fjord had heard Jester get excited before. He’d seen her downright giddy over this or that; she was an easily excitable girl. The squeal she let out when she saw him, though, was not only the loudest, most high-pitched noise he’d ever heard her make, it was the loudest, most high-pitched noise he’d ever heard. Period. It was a damn good thing they were the only ones in the tavern that early (other than a very annoyed barkeep) otherwise he’d be the center of the room’s attention. As it was, he was only the center of the group’s attention.

“Oh, I _knew_ it! This is so cute, oh my goodness, you look so good even though purple is not as nice of a color on you as it is on him!”

“Jester, what in the world are you talking—”

Fjord was cut off by a solid pat on the back from Beau, who was coming down the stairs behind him. “Nice. Just don’t get all lovey-dovey, yeah? Walk of honor’s one thing. Wearing his clothes? _Ehh._ You’re toeing the line.”

_Oh, shit._

Fjord looked down at himself for the first time since getting dressed, and no, they weren’t fucking with him. He’d somehow managed to grab Molly’s coat without noticing on his way out the door.

“I don’t— We’re not—”

“Oh, come on man, you’re really gonna try to deny this now?” Beau asked, pushing her way around Fjord and sitting on the nearest table. “Alright, let’s hear it. Why’re you wearing his coat? What elaborate scheme is this a part of?”

“I was just— I was distracted, I didn’t check—”

Jester let out a loud sigh. “Ooh, just so _distracted_ by pretty Molly and his pretty—”

“Why’re we calling me pretty? Not that I object, I’d just like to know the reason this time.” Right. Because of course this could get worse. Molly came downstairs, stopping several steps above Fjord who was very pointedly not looking back at him.

“Oh, that reminds me. Fjord, don’t forget to check what you’re picking up in the morning. I’d hate for you to accidentally take my coat when you go.” Molly shoved him to the side much like Beau had, dropping a bundle of cloth into Fjord’s arms as he went. “Now that you’ve got that, can I have my coat back? It’s not that I don’t trust you of course, it’s just that you’re not someone I trust.”

Fjord set his pack on the ground at his feet and took the coat off as quickly as he could, practically throwing it at Molly in his rush to get his own clothes on and get this whole situation over with as quickly as possible. Beau was really only making things worse when she whistled and clapped as he undressed.

“Yeah, take it off!”

“You are not helping.”

“Since when do I do that?”

At least Molly was getting a good laugh out of this whole thing; he hopped onto the table next to Beau and gave her an affectionate shove. “Oh, come on now, give the poor guy a break. Happens to the best of us.”

“Does it though? Because, like, I kind of only see this happening to _him_ right now.” Fjord wanted to strangle her if it would get her to stop talking for any amount of time. Luckily Molly took things into his own hands; he leaned over and whispered something into her ear that made her turn crimson and drop the matter entirely. It was only because Fjord was so close that he caught any of it at all, the only fragments being, “In his shoes,” and, “Yasha.”

Beau stood from the table and avoided looking at Fjord, Molly, or Yasha as she moved to the rest of the group. That was apparently the signal for the everyone else to drop it too, because aside from some amused glances and quiet snickering from Jester, it wasn’t brought up again. They gathered together and discussed the day ahead of them, estimating travel times and getting a rough idea of where they were headed next.

The conversation eventually turned from plans to banter, and seeing as they were steering clear of what had happened to him, Fjord was more than comfortable letting that happen. He joked with the rest of the party, and rose with them when they’d decided it was time to be on their way. He, as always, took up the back of the group, and saw everyone out while he walked their cups up to the barkeep.

Once he made it to the door he was all but ambushed by Molly, who’d apparently been waiting to pin him against the wall out of view of everyone else.

“Now, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that this was an accident. But I’m going to make one thing very clear right now and tell you that nobody touches my things. I’ll give you a bit to decide whether or not you want to be included in that.”

Being pinned already had Fjord’s head spinning, and he couldn’t make those words make sense in his head. “Whether— whether I’m included in not touching your things?”

“No,” Molly said with a grin. “Whether you’re part of my things.”

And before Fjord could process _that_ offer— had it been an offer?— Molly winked, patted Fjord on the cheek, and departed, talking loudly to the rest of the group as he led them away from the tavern. Fjord took a second to catch his breath and hurried after.


End file.
